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Faculty

Sue A. Kawashima

The founder of the Japanese Program at Hunter, Professor Kawashima obtained her BA and MA at Columbia University and is a PhD candidate also at Columbia. Her area of concentration is Western and Japanese Art History. She has been teaching Japanese at Hunter College since 1988 to present. Her publications include A Dictionary of Japanese Particles published by Kodansha International and Oxford University Press (1999), which enjoys the reputation as one of the "Best Five" Japanese language textbooks in Japan; A Doctor in Your Pocket: Basic Medical Terms in English and Japanese co-authored by John J. Olichney, MD published by 3A Corporation (2000); Medical Communication in English and Japanese published by Nitto Sho-in (2002); and A Girl's Record, Around That Time-1935-8/15/1945 and 9/11/2001 published by Kodansha (2006), which is a World War II memoir based on her real-life experiences.

She has given lectures on world peace at Lehman College in New York, Hiroshima, Tokyo, and various other cities throughout Japan. She has served as a Committee member to select candidates for the JET (Japanese Exchange & Teaching) Program, a Japanese-government sponsored program that sends English-speaking college graduates from throughout the world to teach English in Japan.

In 2013, Professor Kawashima was awarded a Commendation by the Consul General of Japan, Ambassador Shigeyuki Hiroki, for her outstanding contributions to the field of Japanese Studies and the development of cultural exchanges and friendship between Japan and the United States.

Maayan Barkan

Professor Barkan is currently pursuing her PhD Studies in Linguistics at the Graduate Center of CUNY. She received her MA in Japanese language education at Osaka University of Foreign Languages in Japan. She has received two full scholarships from the Japanese Ministry of Education, including a two-year program for her MA studies and a one-year program of Japanese language and culture studies at the same university. She passed the highest level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. She also passed the Japan Society's Japanese language teacher training program in New York City, where she has assisted and taught privately.

Kazue Kurahara

Professor Kurahara received her MA in Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language and TESOL from New York University. She holds teaching certificates in both Japanese and English as a Second Language from New York State. She currently teaches Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced, and Conversation courses at Hunter College. In addition, she teaches Japanese at New York University, Japan Society, and Language House, LLC. Previously she has taught at Pace University, LaGuardia Community College, and Horace Mann High School after student teaching at the United Nations International School. She is well versed in the latest methodologies, and is constantly exploring various approaches to make her lessons clear, practical and fun. She has also worked for many years as part of an educational non-profit organization based in Japan.

Akiyo Furukawa

Akiyo Furukawa (Lieberson) was born and raised in Tokyo. She was a business consultant specializing in training employees on every level in all aspects of company policy, procedure and skills enhancement in Japan. Currently she teaches Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced Japanese Language courses at Hunter College and also teaches elementary and high school students at the Dwight School. She established JAKids, an organization which has been offering private and semi private lessons in Japanese Heritage Language for more than 12 years. She received her BA in Sociology at Hunter College and an MA in the TESOL Program at The City College of New York.